The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-11
The Scaling Of tle DOllas
BY NM CRINKLE.

Sealed to Mapleson" was written on her ivory brow.
 It was Arditi's brand.
 l felt sorry for her. X sad, pa thetic resignation like hoar frost lay upon her soul, the wintry filigree of doom.
 She spoke with calm despair, as if music were convent and she had taken the white veil from Arditi's hand.
 Il have been to Colonel Mapleson," she said. "He and Signor Arditi heard me sing. They were enraptured. They advised me not to waste my voice in concert or comic opera. Ital- ian opera was my field. I would make a charming Lindd. Could I not wait for the opening? It was sure to come. Then they wrote my name down."
 And she was sealed.
 From that moment she was dedi- cated to "Linda" Her sweet little StogatO was heard no more in the benefit concert. The bait of the comic opera manager lured her not. She sat in silence with her hushed voice for months, waiting for "Linda" and Italian opera.
 Meanwhile Arditi, with spring nosegay in his coat, is walking the Thames embankment ill blessed forget fulness of the American girl banked up in hopes there ill Thirty street.
 This precious girl might have blessed some choir with her notes. Choruses yawned for so fresh a voice. Major Pond would have added her photograph to his unexcelled collec- tion. Aronson would have decked her in shorts with sort of triumph
 George Colby could have sung her at innumerable soirees. Chickering hall would have saved spot for her at benefit concerts. A hundred gal lant men would have paragraphed her as the charming" and revealed to the world her beauty and her prospects in musical burlesque. On the other hand thousand industrious clerks would have married her and given her fiat, content with her voice and her fresh cheeks.
 But there she was, inapproachable to managers and bridegrooms, neither singing nor marrying, simply waiting for "Linda," dumbly expectant under that brand of Arditi's.
 ] stamped my foot with vexation. My child !" cried, "don't you know that this is infatuation? Linda is a chimea, Italian opera an ignis .fdtaus. Arditi is myth! Italian opera isn't sung except in Padua and New Orleans, and Linda never leaves Italy now. There are only ten chances of Linda in the year, and they are kept flor American school girls who want to send press notices home from Florence. Don't you know, you dear demented dummy, that the earth swarms with Lindas? Thirty fourth street reeks with this quiet respecta- bility; Murray Hill is yearning with them. There's only one Italian opera company out of Italy, and if it would give Linda every night in the year it would not accommodate the girls that Arditi has consecrated with his brand Return, beseech you, to the duties of life, and live no longer the ideal life of an American soprano in small Italian town"
 Her placid brown eye was upon me Her ivory brow was unrutfled. She was comparing me with Arditi. could see it. Arditi had fattered her was friend. But I felt it my duty to keep on. "Arditi," I said, "is q monster!" He looks with enviou; eye upon thescrop of American so. pranos. He feels that they will over. run England and Germany as they have overrun France and Italy. H, came to this country to stop it. H, has tlattered and sealed 5000 choru, girls with "Linda" He has converted them from national girls with voices to mute donnas with expectations, anG he has gone back chuokling and say. ing-"At all events nobody will heal from that 5000. They will wait tt make their de6uts in Linda"
 And all this was three years ago When next saw the ivory brow, tt my horror and astonishment it hat another brand upon it. At first thought it was Thursby's iron, ant she had been taking lessons of tn, American warbler. But a second glance revealed the name. It wa Thurber !! fh
 She had gone and resealed to thu aboriginal, contemporaneous, conti mental and indigenous opera company H. K. had sat upon her case; so had F. B. Theodore Thomas had branded her. She would sing, he thought, il Pergolesi's "Serva Padrona," which ht thought of reviving, as there was { strong popular demand growing uI for Pergolesi. She had a fine light soprano, and an opportunity would be given her in the classic reanissance
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